The expression of miR-211-5p in atherosclerosis and its influence on diagnosis and prognosis

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic significance of miR-211-5p in atherosclerosis (AS) by detecting the expression level in serum of patients with AS. METHODS: A total of 85 healthy controls and 90 asymptomatic AS patients participated in this study. The expression level of miR-211-5p in all subjects were measured by qRT-PCR. Spearman correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the correlation of miR-211-5p with CRP and CIMT. The ROC curve was established to assess the diagnostic value of miR-211-5p in AS. The Kaplan–Meier survival curve and multivariate COX regression analysis were used to evaluate the prognostic significance of miR-211-5p in AS. RESULTS: The expression levels of miR-211-5p in AS patients were significantly lower than in healthy controls (P < 0.001), and miR-211-5p showed a significant negative correlation with CRP (r = − 0.639, P < 0.001) and CIMT (r = − 0.730, P < 0.001). The AUC of the ROC curve was 0.900, the specificity and the sensitivity were 84.7% and 78.9%, respectively, which indicating that miR-211-5p had diagnostic value for AS. Survival analysis showed that patients with low miR-211-5p expression were more likely to have cardiovascular end-point events (Log rank P = 0.013). CONCLUSION: Serum miR-211-5p could be used as a new biomarker for the diagnosis of AS, and the low expression of miR-211-5p is associated with the poor prognosis of AS.